Merchants in the Temple

Inside Pope Francis's Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican

Gianluigi Nuzzi

From a bestselling author with unprecedented access to Pope Francis, an investigative look at the recent financial scandals at the highest levels of the Vatican

A veritable war is being waged in the Catholic Church: on one side, there is Pope Francis’s strong message of one church for rich and poor alike; on the other, there is the old Curia with its endless enemies, and the old and new lobbies struggling to preserve their not-so-Christian privileges.

Based on confidential information—including top secret documents from inside the Vatican and actual transcripts of Pope Francis’s admonishments to the papal court about the lack of financial oversight and responsibility—Merchants in the Temple illustrates all the undercover work conducted by the pope since his election and shows the reader who his real enemies are. It reveals the instruments Francis is using to reform the Vatican and rid it, once and for all, of the overwhelming corruption traditionally encrusted in the Roman Catholic Church.

Merchants in the Temple is a startling book that will shock every reader. It’s a story worthy of a Dan Brown novel, with its electrifying details of the trickery and scheming against the papacy—except that it is real.

Gianluigi Nuzzi is an Italian journalist, nonfiction writer and TV anchorman. He is the author of two bestselling titles, Vaticano SpA and Sua Santità, which sold more than one million copies in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the United States, Brazil and the Netherlands. He lives in Milan.